eiNetwork Adopts NetBeez for Distributed Network Monitoring

Pittsburgh, PA – May 13, 2014 – eiNetwork has chosen NetBeez to support its customers at more than 75 library locations in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. eiNetwork provides network connectivity, online Library Catalog services, PC support for 2,500 desktops, and technology assistance to libraries throughout the county. In its day-to-day operations the eiNetwork staff must assure network and application availability to the public libraries, where technology is necessary in order to streamline operations and deliver effective library services. Residents county-wide spend 1.1 million hours a year in public computer usage through more than 1.4 million sessions. Access to technology enables people to search and apply for jobs, secure social benefits, research and track school assignments, set medical appointments and manage bills and records. Libraries are unique in providing such access at no cost to the user.

Before NetBeez, to troubleshoot network and application issues, eiNetwork had to rely on the information reported by the users to the help desk; most of the times this information was incomplete and insufficient to assess the scale of the problem. “We had to connect via remote desktop to client machines to have a better view of the problem. This was an approach that does not scale well with 80 network locations,” said Ernest Williams, Network Manager at eiNetwork. “Things changed when we started using NetBeez. On the dashboard I can quickly access the network availability and application performance data collected in real-time by all the agents. This translates to faster problem resolution, decreased service downtime and reduced onsite tech dispatches.”

How NetBeez is helping eiNetwork

User perspective monitoring: NetBeez agents run continuous monitoring tests to network services and applications. The real-time and historical data collected by the agents and reported on the NetBeez dashboard is used by eiNetwork to identify issues within specific services. eiNetwork compares performance results from PING and HTTP tests to determine if the degradation is on the network or application layer. Moreover, the historical data enables the discovering of sporadic and intermittent issues otherwise not identifiable by other tools.

Distributed monitoring: On the NetBeez dashboard eiNetwork can quickly verify for all their network locations whether the network configuration changes and software upgrades applied were successful. NetBeez automates validation steps, which before were manually performed, and enables eiNetwork to be more efficient and successful when doing maintenance operations on their network infrastructure.

Easy to use: The agents are fully integrated with the intuitive and web-based dashboard. This means that from day one, everybody at eiNetwork could use the software without any special training. From a deployment perspective, the agents are small, Plug-and-Play hardware appliances that require no manual configuration and can be connected to the network like regular workstations.

“NetBeez was built for organizations that, like eiNetwork, have dozens if not hundreds of network locations to support,” said Panickos Neophytou, Chief Technology Officer at NetBeez. “Before NetBeez, companies like eiNetwork were relying on manual tasks or homegrown solutions with dedicated workstations at remote locations. Our integrated hardware-software solution removes the hassle of installing monitoring endpoints that had to be individually maintained and configured by IT. With NetBeez our customers can rely on a fully integrated, distributed, and centrally managed solution that simplifies the deployment and management of a large number of agents, giving them full visibility of their network no matter how complex it may be.”

About NetBeez

NetBeez, Inc. offers a distributed network monitoring system for enterprises with centralized IT and many network locations. NetBeez measures and reports key performance indicators of network and service quality, enabling companies to quickly troubleshoot and fix network problems, cutting costs and reducing network downtime.

About eiNetwork

The eiNetwork is the countywide-shared service that provides technology services to public libraries in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, providing service to 1.2 million residents. eiNetwork provides a number of shared technology services to libraries including the online catalog and Integrated Library Software system, a high-speed countywide network, Internet access, webhosting, public computing management systems and various other library systems to support collaboration.

eiNetwork is a 501c(3) non-profit corporation registered in the state of Pennsylvania and is jointly operated by the Allegheny County Library Association and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Funding is primarily through the Allegheny Regional Asset District, which supports and finances regional assets in the areas of libraries, parks & recreation, cultural, sports and civic facilities and programs.